It’s Crunch time again
Cochrane Crunch continues its quest of trying to make it to the Northern Ontario Jr. Hockey League championship series for the second time in its two-year history when it takes on the Kirkland Lake Gold Miners in the East Division finals.
The best-of-seven series begins tonight in Cochrane.
The teams were evenly-matched during the regular season, from which Cochrane finished first and Kirkland Lake placed third on the East side.
In eight games, Cochrane held a slight edge over Kirkland Lake with a 4-3-1 record. Four of the eight games went to overtime.
The Crunch enters the series having been idle for more than a week following a four-game sweep of the Timmins Rock.
On the other side, Kirkland Lake just completed a thrilling six-game series triumph over the Powassan Voodoos earlier this week.
Cochrane owner-general manager-coach Ryan Leonard offered his thoughts to HockeyNewsNorth.com heading into the series with Kirkland Lake.
“We are hoping that we don’t get caught flat at the start of the series as we have been off for eight days and prior to the sweep of Timmins we were off for 12 days so there has been a lot of sitting around trying to stay focused,” Leonard began.
“The boys are eager to win. Even though we only started with five players back from last year’s championship run, the guys that are here again have been letting the other guys know that this is going to be one wild ride,” Leonard added.
Cochrane lost to the Soo Thunderbirds in last season’s NOJHL championship series.
Never mind the excuses before you start, get out there and win. Flat team this
time of year. give me a break.
Lenny,
Lead your guys to win this series.
Your turn to take on the T-Birds.
Go Crunch Go
Your team can do it Leonard GO CRUNCH GO
both teams KL and Cochrane allowed 45 shots on net in the series openor. None of the teams remaining can match the tbirds defensive tenacity . Should mean another title for the Birds. Sorry but lennie did not learn from last year. You can have all the offence you want but defence wins championships. Good luck to all the remaining teams.